Fine Chinese Cuisine Dinner at Royal Flush Restaurant Ara Damansara By Best Restaurant To Eat

These days Chinese dining is more of experience rather than just filling up the tummy with nice and delicious food. One such place is the Royal Flush which is located at Central Piazza, Oasis Square Ara Damansara, No 2 Jalan PJU 1A/7A, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.

The Oasis Square is a new place to be seen at i.e. new happening place. There are many upmarket restaurants that have been set up in this place. The court yard is filled with many water features and a walk around this area is very relaxing with the sound of water fountain along the way especially after a tiring and stressful day the office. Taking a brisk walk around this Piazza in the early evening can be rejuvenating your senses.

The façade of the Royal Flush does stand out prominently at the entrance of the Square. The Chinese Palace based décor and impressive theme really gives you a feeling on what to expect from this restaurant. The large huge red door is very prominent and reminiscent of the door of the Forbidden City although it was much smaller in comparison.

 The décor and furniture arrangement was classical Chinese theme.

 As it was still Chinese New Year, our first dish was the Royal Flush Yee Sang with Salmon. The supervisor that serves our table introduce each ingredient with good wishes i.e. from the salmon fish as “Nin Nin Yau Yue”, the red packet as “Hong Wan Thong Tau” and so forth, it was quite amusing and fun way to start off our dinner.

 I always find the Yee Sang these days serves at restaurant are overwhelmed with crackers. It becomes more of a crackers meal rather than a Lou Sang dish. I usually do not order this dish unless it is with business associates for the “Yee Tau”.

 Next on the course is the Double Boiled Top Shell With Ginseng Root. There are many ingredients put into this soup, i.e. Kampong Chicken, Dried Scallop and etc. The Top shell that was accompanied are cut into thinly slice and it was also very chewy and a perfect substitute match to the soup although abalone slice would have made it a perfect combination. 

 We were expecting a very strong ginseng taste as most ginseng soup especially those from Korean restaurant had a strong and herbal taste. To our surprise, the taste of ginseng (American ginseng) is quite mild and coupled with the Kampong Chicken, slurping the warm and tasty soup was a good kick-start for the night.

The next dish is the Steamed Kampong Chicken with Dried Scallop. I find this dish a little disappointing as the whole steamed chicken is laden with the dried scallop sauce and it made the chicken very gooey and starch like. So, you can’t really taste the original sweet taste of steam chicken.

I preferred Steamed Chicken by itself or served with superior soya sauce. This method of cooking also ensured that the meat stays succulent, juicy and firm.

Our next course is the Steamed Dragon Garoupa Fish With Superior Soya Sauce. This is a live fish and you can really taste the freshness and the smooth texture of the garoupa. You can’t get any fresher than this.

The sweetness of the fish was accented by the light soy sauce dressing topped with a generous amount of parsley and chopped spring onions.

Next is the Fried Prawns with Butter Sauce. There are many variations of Butter Prawns that I have eaten but in Royal Flush, the prawns are first fried and are coated with the butter sauce topping rather than actually cooking the prawns in the sauce.

Taste wise, it was a little too bland. The sauce was not strongly infused into the meat and did not do any justice to the big prawn that was served.

Next on the table was the Sea Cucumber Seasonal Vegetable With Abalone Sauce. The chef had added in the fish maw and oyster into this dish. It was a good combination as the oyster was very well blended with the fish maw which was soft with the sauce heavily infused into it and the sea cucumber which was firm and springy. You get the best of the both world.

The use of broccoli was a right choice as it was able to soak up the abalone sauce and made a perfect change from too much of meat dishes before this.

The last main course for the night was the Lotus Leaf Waxed Meat Rice. It was the Royal Flush version of “Lap Mei Fan”. Personally I prefer “Lap Mei Fan prepared using plain white rice (the oil and flavours will be infused into the white rice making the rice extremely flavourful), but here we were served with the version of a mixture of Glutinous rice and white rice.

As with glutinous rice, somehow the flavours of the waxed meat did not penetrate or blended in very well and again like the prawns the wax meat are served separately and henceforth you find it a little more drier than if you would have cooked with the rice.

To end our evening, we were presented the Mango Cream with Sago and the popular “Kwai Fah Ko”, a dish which have herbs and wolfberries infused into the layers of clear brown gelatine. It was not too sweet and was a nice finale to our sumptuous dinner.

The mango cream was a nice finale for a hearty meal as it carries a light sourish taste – good to assist in the digestion.

Although the cost for the dinner was on the high side, nevertheless the entire experience of dining at Royal Flush makes it fulfilling to our every senses i.e sight, feel, taste and etc.

One Utama Super Junior Inspired Korean Double Fried KyoChon Chicken

Malaysian just love Fried Chicken unfortunately the Fried Chicken consume these days at Fast Food outlet and Pasar Malam is not very healthy. Most of these outlets and shops reuse too many time for the frying making the oil very carcinogenic.

I was invited to dinner at KyoChon Chicken at Lot 331, Lower Ground One Utama to try out Double Fried Chicken which was opened just 2 months ago. What makes me curious is that the chicken goes thru a double frying method, which is unique to KyoChon. We were told that the frying oil that were used is Cannola oil.

Kyo in Korean means searching for enlightenment or wisdom and Chon means village. In Korea, where they started in 1991 and now there are more than 1000 plus KyoChon restaurant, KyoChon is normally eaten as a snack finger food. But in Malaysia, customers prefer a full meal and you can order it with white rice, Butter rice or Kim Chi rice as a side dish.

This restaurant ambassador is none other than the popular SUPER JUNIOR – the top band in K-Pop today and it is well decorated with memorabilia of the band.

 They have also a stand in life size figurine of the leading team member which is Si-Won at the entrance. Patrons and fans of Super Junior can pose with this figurine.

Our starter for the night is the Potato Wedges. The potato wedges serve here is from the same manufacturer as in Korea and is served with 3 different dipping sauce i.e. namely the Honey mustard, Special BBQ sauce and the Chilli sauce. The wedges were fried to Golden Brown and was very crispy.

There are four type of style that you can had with your chicken i.e. The Original Soy Series, The Salsa Series, The Red Series and The Honey Glazed Series. You can have it either as Wings, Drum Stick or Breast strips.

Original Soy Series – coated with soy garlic glaze. This is my favourite as you can taste the extra crisp even after a while. Most fried chicken tends to lose its crispness after sometime in the open but not in this case. You can taste the soy sauce which was very well marinated into the chicken.

The Salsa Series – coated with special rice batter.  Normally, I don’t quite enjoy the breast fried chicken as it tends to be very plain and tasteless due to the thick meat layers i.e. not very well marinated. At Kyochon, I was delighted to taste a fried chicken breast which was not only very well marinated but was still juicy when you eat it. We understand that chicken served here are marinated for 24 hours. This is to ensure that the flavours are full embedded into the meat.

The Red Series – glazed with hot sauce from Korea’s hottest red chilli pepper. This is the hot stuff and only for those who like to eat Hot Fried Chicken. I find the sauce too overwhelming, it will be beter to order the original and put in the sauce to your liking ie. as a dipping sauce.

The Honey Glazed Series – marinated with a special sauce and glazed with natural Honey sauce. This one is the ladies favourite as it carries the sweet honey taste but again I would prefer the sauce to be added to your need rather than having it glazed into the chicken.

Kyocho mission is simple i.e. to provide a wholesome Fried Chicken meals based on the 3 promises.

1. To never, ever serve fast food.
2. To use 100% natural ingredients.
3. To use only the freshest, healthiest chickens.

To live up to their promise your order for fried chicken are fried after you ordered and not pre-fried like other fast food restaurant where you can get your Fried Chicken instantly, therefore there is a waiting time of 15 minutes. So this is the first motto not serve fast food.

Second promise all ingredient and sauce made are from 100% natural ingredients. You can see a sample of the sauce used here.

The third promise is the freshest and healthiest chicken. Here at Kyochon, they do not use frozen chicken. Chicken comes in chill form and it is very important to ensure the tenderness and freshnest. If chicken are frozen, you can easily spot them i.e. the chicken meat tends to have a reddish and sometime blood clog meat. This is a sign that the chicke n are frozen before being thawed and cooked. At Kyochon, the chicken meat is still white after frying.

If you are really looking for wholesome Fried Chicken, without worrying about the calories and carcinogenic effect, then head over to Kychon Chicken and feel the difference.

Kyochon Chicken (opposite of Cold Storage)

LG 311, Lower Ground Floor,

One Utama Shopping Centre,

No. 1, Persiaran Bandar Utama, Bandar Utama,

47800 Petaling Jaya, Selangor Darul Ehsan.

Operation hour: 10:00AM - 10:00PM daily

Website: www.kyochon.com.my | www.facebook.com/KyoChonMalaysia